


woke up new

by hotknife666 (hotdammneron)



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Magical Realism, Non-Linear Narrative, Picnics, Time Travel, background nolan/tk, getting gently and nebulously emotional about hockey and lost childhood and repression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-30 02:01:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19843231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotdammneron/pseuds/hotknife666
Summary: “I want to be seventeen again, whatever,” Carter says with Dante laying half on him. “I wanna fuck my life up differently, y’know?”“How different?” Dante asks, because he’s a real one, or a good conversationalist, or something. Handsome leaderly conversationalist dumbass. Carter kisses his wrist again.





	woke up new

**Author's Note:**

> do you ever see a photo of two people who have maybe met three times in their lives and just go absolutely ape shit over it and decide to start a rarepair apparently? yea me neither. this is for aisling and anyone else who reads this deserves medals and accolades. 
> 
> i wrote this in a night so please be gentle with me as always
> 
> twitter @/blghorny

Carter wakes up to his phone just absolutely fucking blaring Yellowcard’s Ocean Avenue, which is like. It should be sign enough that something’s fucky. 

And then it’s like, his bedroom walls are the wrong color, and that would be a goddamn elaborate prank for Teeks to pull being as he doesn’t have keys or authorization to paint the walls of somebody else’s apartment, but -

“Carter! Get out of bed!” his mom’s yelling, somehow, and somebody’s pounding on the door and he doesn’t like, think that his parents are in town, or painted his walls, or. Whatever the fuck is going on. 

“Just a minute!” he yells back, and his voice cracks a little bit, because his body still fucking hates him at age twenty. 

But like, sitting up and letting the comforter pile at his waist, it’s. He’s not in his room, not in his apartment, not in his - not in his body, or something. Or - in his body, of course he’s in his body, but it’s a few years behind. 

Somehow. 

Carter grabs at his blankets until he finds his phone, and it’s three generations of iPhone old, and the fingerprint ID won’t work. If he hadn’t had the same 1-2-3-4 passcode since he was thirteen he’d be royally fucked. 

There’s like, two texts from Dylan and Mikey each, even though they’ve been out of touch lately, but nothing from Dante or Teeks or Patty or anybody, and that’s. Well. 

His phone calendar display says it’s December 24th, 2017, and his snapchat map says he’s at his parents house, and his mom’s storming down the hallway again to pound on his door, and this has got to be some kind of massive prank from god, or something. 

“Carter, baby, you’re gonna miss your flight, you’ve gotta get up,” his mom says from outside the door, and he gets out of bed, because he’s got a fucking world juniors to go to. Again. 

\- - 

“D’you ever just,” Carter says, readjusting his legs to shove his feet against Dante’s thigh. “D’you want to start over?”

Dante just kind of blinks at him, and he’s got the tiny dab pen Josty gave him for their made up holiday in one hand - he found it shoved between the couch cushions, and they’re finally back in business - while the other one’s sort of tracing patterns onto Carter’s ankle, and he’s got a weird look on his face but maybe he just looks like that.

“Your face looks weird,” Carter mumbles, makes grabby hands at the dab pen, but Dante just holds his hand instead. He can’t really complain about that. 

“My face looks handsome, maybe your face looks weird,” Dante says, and he presses his palm against Carter’s until they’re in some kind of arm force resistance competition. Carter’s arm gives in after a few seconds because he’s got a weird angle and Dante’s got weird big arms, relatively speaking, but he concedes himself to pressing a tiny kiss to the side of Dante’s hand when they collapse together. It’s not weird if nobody makes it weird. 

“I want to be seventeen again, whatever,” Carter says with Dante laying half on him. “I wanna fuck my life up differently, y’know?” 

“How different?” Dante asks, because he’s a real one, or a good conversationalist, or something. Handsome leaderly conversationalist dumbass. Carter kisses his wrist again. 

“Dunno,” he says, and his lips are brushing against Dante’s wrist a little and it kind of tickles. “I could do - I could play a different position, I could be a - a fucking forward, I dunno, dude. Can you imagine?” 

“You can’t stop being a goalie at seventeen,” Dante says, and he giggles a little bit, squirming to get more comfortable. “You’d have to, like. Quit hockey, be an accountant, I dunno.”

“Gross,” Carter says, scrunching up his nose and leaning up to take the dab pen from Dante’s hand into his mouth, because he’s multitalented, or something. “‘M gonna scam you out on a used car, bitch.” 

“Traitor,” Dante says even though he’s the real traitor, somehow, but he pillows his head against Carter’s shoulder anyway and changes the TV channel to the food network. 

\- -

So, yeah, it’s 2017.

Again. 

\- -

It’s like -

Okay, it’s fucking weird, obviously.

Carter’s flight is only a few hours, but it gives him some time to like, think about it. Try and line up some kind of timeline, but the only points on it are falling asleep to the sweet sounds of Dante stonedly mocking Bobby Flay, waking up in his childhood bedroom. 

2017 Carter doesn’t even have Dante’s number in his contacts (and he looked under every option - Dante, Dante Fabbro, Fabbs, his typical ‘dbabyyy’ followed by two dozen embarrassing emojis Teeks and Patty tipsily deliberated over for nearly an hour). It’s a whole nightmare. 

Looking back at like, his camera roll and shit, and sending off a cursory ‘bro do we know this dude’ airport text to Mikey, it doesn’t seem like he’s even met Dante before. It makes sense, maybe, since they barely knew each other when Dante got traded in the middle of last season, even if they’ve been fucking inseperable since then. 

Once he gets into Montreal, though, it’s all back into routine, rituals getting into the locker room like he’s done for years. Coordination stuff, listen to the right songs, ignoring everyone’s chirping, getting lunch. He doesn’t get distracted when he spots Dante across the room, half dressed getting his hair ruffled by Barzal. He doesn’t get distracted at practice with Dante there on the ice, doesn’t get distracted when Dante claps him on the shoulder monotonously after the game on Tuesday. 

\- -

“I swear I know you from somewhere,” Dante says to him, sliding into the booth across from him at breakfast on Friday. It’s the second thing he’s ever said to Carter, in this timeline at least. Not that he’s been counting. 

Carter wants to tell him, they lived together for a month when Dante first moved to Philly, he fell asleep on Dante’s couch just three nights ago, they get groceries together every week and a half, whatever. He wants to tell Dante how much he wants to push his fingers through his hair, how much he wants to kiss that crease he gets between his eyebrows that makes him look so confused all the goddamn time. 

“Friend of a friend, maybe?” Carter says, because it’s easier than explaining all the shit he doesn’t understand. The weird fever dream slash time travel situation, the feelings situation, all of that. 

“It’s probably Barzy, he knows everyone,” Dante says, stopping to focus all his attention on folding a piece of pancake in half on his fork and shoving it in his mouth, not talking with his mouth full because his mama raised him right. “He ‘n Josty know everybody, they’re trying to make out with everyone in juniors or something.”

It’s weirdly complicated, trying not to make teasing jokes about dudes he’s not supposed to know at this point in his life, so Carter keeps his jokes to himself, tears off a piece of his toast. 

“You should come by Barzy’s room later, secret party,” Dante keeps talking, because apparently he’s just always chatty with Carter, first meeting or not. “I’m supposed to make sure he and Josty don’t burn down the kitchenette, it’s gonna be fun.”

“Is somebody gonna try and make out with me?” Carter says, because it’s as close as he can get. 

“If you’re lucky,” Dante says, and he grins at carter, taps him on the wrist twice before he picks his plate up off the table. “I’ll text you the room number, okay?” 

“Yeah, alright,” Carter says, because self preservation is for people who aren’t accidentally time hopping, and Dante’s wandering off to the table Mat and Josty are at, and Carter feels like there’s something missing. It’s been how he’s felt most of the time lately, 2017 or not. 

\- -

R u gonna fuck fabbs???? Mikey texts him from across the breakfast area, and when Carter looks at him he’s chewing with his mouth open, watching wide-eyed while Stromer gesticulates across from him. The gesticulation has the same air of moroseness as everything Stromer does, even as happy as he is now on the Hawks, but that’s just kinda sad to notice, so Carter tries to ignore it. 

You have the wrong number, i don’t know who this is and i don’t know what you’re talking about, Carter types back one handed, wiping up some of the yolk running off his eggs with the last of his toast. 

Mikey glances down at his phone and flips Carter off without looking, and Carter hates how much he misses him lately, even if he’s right here. 

\- -

“I’m gonna kick your ass, Hartsy,” Trav says from the other end of the couch, grabbing the Xbox controller out of Nolan’s hand. Carter isn’t thinking, like, a ton about how they’re sitting, because it involves a lot of limb entanglement and potential for poorly hidden boners and obstinate denial. “Pats, show me how to get to the character selection screen, I want to be Waluigi,” 

Carter, as is only natural, kicks Trav’s ass in Mariokart, playing as princess peach, because some things in the world are still good and right. He’s got a text from Dante about hanging out when he checks his phone again, and he texts back to say he should just let himself in. He’s still got a key from when he stayed at Carter’s for a while, and Carter appreciates not being the only third wheel in his own apartment. 

“Dante’s coming over in a bit,” He says, putting his phone down on the arm rest out of Travis’ reach. 

“Does he still live here?” Nolan asks, because he’s a bitch, and he’s playing Tetris blitz on his phone because he thinks he’s too good for more than one round of ‘kart. 

“D’you two bone yet?” Travis asks before Carter can get a reply out, leaning back and trying to fuck with Nolan’s Tetris, because he’s a bitch too. Maybe soulmates are real after all. 

“No, and no, and get out of my home,” Carter says, pushing his hair back distressedly. “Not everyone’s sleeping with their friends, moron.” 

Travis almost falls off of Patty’s lap trying to slap Carter’s controller out of his hands, and Nolan may or may not pinch Trav’s nipple through his shirt, and if it all devolves into pseudoerotic wrestling by the time Dante comes over that’s just par for the course. 

\- -

It could be a normal night, maybe, for 2020 Carter at least, texting Dante to let him in even if there’s only one other message in their text history. And Dante hugs him at the door like they’ve known each other for years, and they have in Carter’s timeline (he’s started referring to it, internally at least, in terms of timelines - there’s Dante’s timeline, and Carter’s timeline, and even if he’s lived both of them it feels wrong to call it his). 

There’s booze, of course there is, and Carter tries not to know already from last summer (two summers from now, for Dante and everyone, whatever) that Josty’s as much of a lightweight as he is a sad drunk. And Dante’s sprawled on one of the beds, and his cheeks are flushed high up like always happens, and Carter’s trying not to look at him. Trying not to think about how if he was home, he could curl up next to him, listen to his heart beat like something so grounding. They’ve only known each other a week, as far as Dante knows, he doesn’t know Carter, how much Carter wants. 

Not that anyone knows that, not really, but. Whatever.

\- -

The first time Carter wakes up with Dante isn’t really a surprise, even if it should be, and Dante’s arm is draped over his waist, and his nose is pressed into Carter’s chest. He can feel Dante breathing heavily, snuffly, through the thin fabric of his shirt, and it’s - it’s nothing. He pulls Dante’s arm off his waist, as much as he doesn’t want to, reaches for the remote to turn off the TV. The ‘are you still watching’ screen feels like a mockery. 

They’ve got the day off, and he’ll probably come up with some touristy stuff to get Dante used to the city as an excuse to get out of the house later, but he putters through the kitchen for now, makes coffee and his eggs and toast without making too much noise. He hears the door click a few minutes in, and Dante comes into the kitchen, too early to talk much. 

They don’t really talk about it, even if Dante seems to be finding more and more ways to fall asleep halfway through a show and Carter never bothers kicking him out. It’s nice, maybe, in some kind of way Carter doesn’t want to look too closely at. He’s worried he’ll ruin it if he looks at it, scare it away if he keeps his eyes on it for too long. 

(And there’s something about that - see, Carter’s never really gotten into dating, he asked a girl to the winter formal in year nine but he cancelled on her to camp with his billet dad. There’s something about trying to be with people who don’t get it, trying to schedule dates and shit with somebody who isn’t gonna understand that training comes first, whatever. So maybe he’s lacking intimacy, physical contact in his life, however gross it feels to call it that, he’s willing to admit that he hasn’t really had any hugs outside of due goalie affection and family stuff in a while. 

So - it’s good, because Dante gets it, because Dante’s willing to wake up early for morning skate, and they’re on the same meal plan, and maybe Carter sleeps a little better with Dante there, something comforting about a warm body to wrap himself up around. And it’s not like waking up with Dante’s foot shoved between his and Dante’s fingertips barely brushing his back when his shirt rides up is anything like dating, and it’s not like he can stand the fact that Dante’s always wearing socks to bed, but it’s something, and it’s not something he can stand to think about, and there’s nothing more to it.)

\- -

Carter’s in the ice machine room, trying to figure out if it’s worth the dollar seventy five for a bag of Lays, or if the carbs would keep him up all night. It’s not like it’s a big deal, he doesn’t even know if he’s going to be in this timeline come tomorrow, but he doesn’t want to fuck real 2017 Carter over by eating some fucking chips before bed. 

“Hey, you alright?” Dante asks, leaning in the doorframe for however long. He’s wearing sweats that are too long for him, hiked up around his ankles, and Carter wants to make some kind of joke about floods, but he can’t think of how to say it without biting his tongue off. Dante’s got his arms crossed over his chest, and whatever used to be printed on his shirt is too worn out and stretched to be recognizable anymore. Carter wonders if he still has it. 

“Yeah, I’m just… getting chips, probably,” Carter says, no matter how much he wants to thump his head against the vending machine and find himself magically back in 2020. 

“Dude, you’ve been standing in front of that for like, five minutes at least,” Dante says, and he actually sounds genuinely concerned, and it feels like every time he’s been so worried about Carter getting too in his own head for his own good, it feels too much like real life. It feels like his Dante, like home, however dumb that sounds. “Are you sure you’re doing alright?” 

Carter shakes his head, trying to clear his thoughts, pats around in his shorts pockets for his change. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he says, pulling out a few coins. 

“Just nerves?” Dante asks, and Carter nods. “It’s just a game, dude. It’s not a big deal.” 

Carter laughs, just a tiny bit, because he knows Dante, he knows him too well to believe any of that shit. “You don’t mean any of that, do you?”

Dante laughs back at him, and he looks so nervous, looks so young - even if they’re the same age, with Dante only a few months older, he seems so goddamn old sometimes, there’s something in his eyes, in the way the press talks about him, how mature he is. He’s just a kid, he doesn’t know what he’s doing, neither of them do, especially now. And they’re laughing here in this vending machine room of a Montreal hotel, and it’s midnight, and Carter is in love with him; he’s in love with him now, he’s in love with him three years from now at a house party in Philly, he’ll be in love with him whenever Dante needs him to be. 

“I’m so fucking scared,” Dante says, and he looks like he’s going to cry, and Carter doesn’t know what he’d do about that, but he’d do whatever he needed to. 

“Me too,” Carter says, wiping exhaustion from his eyes with the back of his sweatshirt sleeve. “Can I tell you something crazy?”

Dante nods, and Carter keeps going.

“I think I got teleported here from the future,” He starts, and Dante starts laughing again, a little bit, and maybe it’s all worth it. “Three years from now, and we’re really good friends, somehow, okay? And you’re still, you’re still you, obviously, and you’re still friends with Barz and Josty and everybody, and I don’t know if this is a weird dream or if I’m here for real, but we’re gonna be amazing, someday.”

Dante’s just quiet for a minute, and of course he is, of course he doesn’t believe any of this shit, because who would?

“You’re fucking with me, right?” Dante asks, and Carter thinks about it, how intricate of a joke this would have to be, for no perceivable outcome. “Dude, I don’t understand your sense of humor, like, at all,” 

“You do,” Carter says, and he’s so tired. “You will, someday.”

“Alright,” Dante says, taking a step past the doorway into the ice room. “Well, I look forward to knowing you better, Carter Hart, and I hope I really do get your jokes.”

“You might just be humoring me,” Carter says, and Dante takes another step in, gives him this weird little smile. He’s pretty sure Dante’s shirt has some kind of red and white stripes printed on it, so goddamn cheesy and faded and so painfully sentimental. 

It might be the weirdest thing Carter’s ever felt, standing two feet away from somebody he knows so well who doesn’t know him at all, and he’s barely thinking about the vending machine and the chips he came here for. And Dante, taking a fraction of a step closer, presses his fingertips against Carter’s collarbone, right where the collar of his shirt meets his skin. It’s a soft touch, soft as anything Carter’s used to from him but it feels different here. 

And, of course, in a logical procession of things, Dante kisses him, tilts his head up a tiny bit to reach and presses their lips together, fast, dry, chaste. He pulls away, darts his tongue across his lower lip nervously, more twitchy than Carter’s seen him. 

“It’s, uh,” he says, still not moving his hand from Carter’s collar. “It was for, y’know. For good luck.” 

“Alright,” Carter says, and he brings his hand up to cup Dante’s cheek, brushing his thumb against the soft pad of his lower lip. “Alright,” he says again, and he kisses Dante one more time, lets him kiss back in earnest, as genuine and whole-hearted as they both do anything. 

\- -

When Carter wakes up in Dante’s apartment this time, neck crooked from the arm of the couch and arm asleep where Dante’s pinned it to his chest, it’s nothing new. 

He makes it back to his own apartment before noon, for what it’s worth. He cleans his bathroom to shake some of his nerves, grabs half the groceries he has in his pantry - crackers, some novelty spreads and cheeses Claude convinced him to buy, a half bottle of wine that might be too old to be good. He isn’t sure how wine works, really, but he shoves it all in an old backpack from the bottom of his closet, and he waits. 

It’s almost dark out when he gets his whole deal in order enough to uber back to Dante’s place, triple checking that it’s the right year for once, changing shirts at least seven times and almost backing out twice. 

Dante answers the door on the second knock, which isn’t unusual, but everything seems unusual, like every little thing is a sign. 

“Are you alright?” Dante asks, standing in the doorframe in the sweatpants he was wearing when Carter left hours ago. His hair’s a damn mess, like it always is, and his eyebrows look like they’re about to droop off his face, like they always do. 

“I’ve never been on a picnic before,” Carter says, shifting the weight of the backpack on his shoulder. “It’s fucked up, dude, I’ve been so… I’ve only been on two dates, in my life, and I’ve never been on a picnic.” 

“Why are you - are you coming inside? Why are you telling me this?” Dante asks, and that’s. Reasonable, maybe. “And, uh, we can go on a picnic? If you want to?”

Carter pulls the backpack off his shoulder and holds it out to Dante. It’s an old Jansport full of cheese and crackers, but it feels like a grenade with the pin pulled. It feels like a gesture. It feels like everything. 

“I’ve got picnic stuff in here, it’s - I don’t know, fancy cheese, crackers, weird shit. I don’t know how to have a picnic,” he says, and he feels like he’s doing something wrong, standing here in his friend’s apartment doorway holding a mixed bag of old groceries like it means something grand. 

“Okay,” Dante says, glancing over his shoulder into his semi-dark apartment. “Okay, yeah, let’s go.”

“It’s - it’s 9PM, dude, why are you humoring me on this?” Carter asks, and Dante just blinks at him like he’s turned into an alien, or something. 

“I’m gonna grab a hat, and like, a blanket, so we don’t get eaten by bugs,” Dante says, and it’s enough of an answer.

\- -

Technically speaking, the park closest to Dante’s apartment closes at dusk, and while Carter isn’t a hundred percent on what “dusk” entails, he’s pretty sure they’re past it. They go in anyway, setting up the loose sheet from Dante’s bed under a motion activated street light that keeps flickering out once they sit down. 

The wine’s not too old to drink, or at least Dante says it isn’t, and he’s probably got slightly more refined taste than Carter does. They didn’t bring glasses because they’d break in the backpack, so they’re drinking straight from the bottle, lit up by Carter’s phone flashlight jammed into the grass. It’s nice. 

“How come you’ve never been on a picnic?” Dante asks, because it’s sort of, like, the elephant in the room. 

“I dunno,” Carter says after thinking for a minute. He takes a sip of the wine. “I just sort of didn’t have time. D’you ever feel like you were a hockey player your whole life and you didn’t get to be a kid? Like, yeah, I was sixteen, I had friends and shit, but my friends were just from hockey. I feel like I missed out on, like, everything.” 

“Yeah,” Dante says, putting his arms behind him and leaning back. “I wouldn’t know you, or like, anyone else that matters without hockey, though. This is the nicest picnic I’ve ever been on, probably.”

There are so many stars out. Carter can’t really be too bothered to look at them.

“I think I’m in love with you,” He says, because he can’t take his eyes off Dante, nearly bathed in moonlight, lounging here in a closed off park in the middle of night, because - because what, because Carter asked him to? Because of something.

“Yeah?” Dante says, picking at a blade of grass, glancing over at Carter. 

“Since, like, 2017,” Carter says, even if it comes out half as a mumble. “Since 2017, twice.”

“I don’t think I’m ever gonna understand what you mean half the time,” Dante says, and he sounds so unbearably fond. He could be doing anything else with his night, but. Well. “2017 twice? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re deflecting, that wasn’t the important part,” Carter says, only a tiny bit disappointed. He crosses his arms over his chest, half defensive. “I’m in love with you, Dante.”

“Alright,” Dante says, putting more weight on one arm so he’s facing Carter. “Well, that’s probably good,” 

“What d’you mean?”

“I’ve probably been in love with you since 2017, too,” he says, inching his hand closer to where Carter’s settled his on the blanket, trying to link their fingers together. “Since 2017, like, a dozen times,” 

“I swear, I’ll explain that someday,” Carter laughs, hooking his little finger around Dante’s. “You probably won’t believe me.”

“I’ll look forward to it, then,” Dante says, shifting over to lean his head against Carter’s shoulder, the bottle of wine empty and abandoned between their nearly touching knees. 

The stars look a little bit brighter than Carter’s ever seen them, but maybe that’s the wine talking.

**Author's Note:**

> plot notes: 
> 
> mostly set during world juniors in 2017 but with some nonsense set in the 2020-21 season. yes i am pretending that dante gets traded to the flyers around halfway through the 2019-20 season because i dont know how trades or hockey work. tk plays waluigi in mariokart because waluigi reminds him of nolan. nolan plays nearly exclusively bowser but he plays dry bowser if they ever play on weekdays. they're in love with each other.


End file.
